General NewsComments Off on Congratulations to The Moultrie News Team, Winners of 12 First Place Awards

Mar172015

Congratulations to our friends at The Moultrie News. During the 2015 South Carolina Press Association Annual Meeting & Awards Presentation held March 13-15, 2015, the news team from The Moultrie News took home 12 awards, six of the twelve awards were first place.
What a testament to the talented staff from our hometown newspaper.

The East Cooper Breakfast Rotary Club’s Cinco de May’all event will be held on May 8, 2015 in the Cooper River Room at the Mount Pleasant Waterfront Park. The committee for the event will need help bringing in auction items for the silent and live auctions and getting sponsors for the Cinco event.

The 2014 East Cooper Breakfast Rotary Club’s Toys for Tots bicycle donation was a huge success. Many thanks to all club members who contributed to the cause through their efforts in serving through our Cinco de May’all and Oktoberfest Run events.
A special thank you goes out to Tripp Hoover, Lawton Hayes and David Schwartz for the coordination of pick up and delivery. At the meeting today, representatives from the Marine Corp and Rob Fowler with News 2 praised the club’s efforts for making the Christmas wishes of many lowcountry children come true. To date, Toys for Tots has provided over 1,000,000 toys for children in our area.
Thank you to Warren Pruitt for the photos of the event.

Saturday, October 11th, the Rotary Club of Mt Pleasant partnered with the East Cooper Breakfast Club to provide free shoes to deserving school students in the East Cooper area. Working together, the guidance counselors and principals at 12 schools provided the list of students and gave each a letter of invitation to the event. The Mount Pleasant Target Store provided the venue and children were given the opportunity to select and receive a new pair of shoes and socks.

This year’s event provided free shoes and socks to 235 happy students. The event also offered an opportunity for the Wando High School Interact Club as well as the Rotaract Club from the College of Charleston to participate as escort and shoe shopping assistants. Thirty-five volunteers from the two Rotary clubs were joined by twelve Interact and Rotaract students in a day that was rewarding, full of fellowship, as well as a lot of fun.

Oktoberfest 5K Run – Huge Success, Great Food and Fun

(Pictured Left to Right are Rob Fowler, Stephanie Bates and Mike Bloser)
The Oktoberfest 5K Run 2014 brought out 316 runners and walkers this year. What a great event for our community! Many thanks to all of the club members and volunteers who made this event a success. A special thanks goes out to Mike Bloser and Stephanie Bates for heading up this year’s race. We are proud of their accomplishments. Stay tuned for more on the results of the funds raised as we finalize the numbers.
Great weather and awesome food provided by Lawton Hayes’ team from Service Master of Charleston made the after party lots of fun. Runners and guests enjoyed this great food along with beer provided by Coast Brewery, Palmetto Brewery and Westbrook Brewery while they listened to the Oompah Band.
A huge thank you goes out to all of our sponsors who’s financial support and donations in kind made this event possible. Thank you to Service Master of Charleston, Jimmy Johns, The Hoove LLC, Try Sports, Coast, Palmetto, Westbrook, Coward-Hund, SCE&G, South State Bank, Wal-Mart at the Market at Oakland, McQuire & Company, Stubbs Muldrow & Herin, ALZ Properties LLC, Earthsource Engineering, American Drug Testing, ADC Engineering, Curry Engineers, Stuhr Funeral Home, Mike Schmitt, Division Five, Engineering Foundation Inc. and Pile Drivers Inc.
Here are more photos courtesy of Warren Pruitt from the event.

Put on your running shoes and your party hat. Grab your favorite lederhosen attire and get ready for a great Oktoberfest 5K run presented by the East Cooper Breakfast Rotary Club. The race and after party will be held on Thursday, October 9, 2014.

Thursday Night 5K Race

Our unique Thursday night race will take you through beautiful Mt. Pleasant, SC starting near the foot of the Ravenel Bridge and Waterfront Park, through Patriots Point, and back again.

Our Race Cause

Toys for Tots Bikes and Happy Feet are the charities we have chosen to support for this years race. Last year we donated more than 100 bikes to children in need on Christmas morning and 200 pairs of shoes.

After Race Party

The fun doesn’t stop with the end of the race! We have a live German band, beer, and brats to enjoy at Waterfront Park overlooking the Ravenel Bridge and Wando River.
For more information visit oktoberfest5k.net.

Ashley Adams, ECBR Literacy Chair, presented John Albrecht with a grant from Blackbaud through its Reward Your Passion Grant program in the amount of $500 for the purchase of books for the Rotary Club’s literacy program with Mary Ford Elementary.
Each week, our club asks the meeting speaker to sign a book that we donate to the school’s library.
Blackbaud “Reward Your Passion” Grant: With 25,000 nonprofit customers, it’s difficult for us to choose one organization over another. This is why we put our employees at the center for our philanthropy with initiatives like Reward Your Passion grants. Through Reward Your Passion, employees apply for grants on behalf of organizations where they volunteer. Grants are awarded through a competitive process and given in honor of the employee’s service and commitment to the organization.Up to 20 grants are awarded each quarter. Individual grants are 500 and team grants are 1,000, both are given in the employee’s home currency (USD, Pounds Stirling, Euros, AUSD, etc).

ECBR Club Member, Ashley Adams, heads up our Literacy Program. Ashley gathered the following information to give details about the program and various volunteer opportunities for Club Members.
Each week, we will donate a book to Mary Ford Elementary School with a message from speaker. These books will be donated to the library. Mary Ford Elementary School is a Title I School, and is part of the Charleston Promise Neighborhood. We will also use the Blackbaud grant to purchase an additional $500 worth of books to donate to the school’s reading achievement program. Each quarter, kids who have met their required reading level, will receive a book to take home. Many of these kids do not have a large home library, so this is one of the only ways they are able to take books home to keep. A couple of members mentioned that they might be able to hold book drives in their offices, so that would be great! The greatest need is for 1st-5th grade books. There are also several local organizations that provide opportunities to tutor or mentor children and adults throughout the community.
Here are a few volunteer opportunities:
Reading Partners:http://info.readingpartners.org/volunteer-in-charleston
Through Reading Partners, members can volunteer to read with a child for at least one hour a week. Reading Partners is committed to ensuring that Charlestonians can look forward to a bright future. Working closely with Charleston County School District leaders, the philanthropic community, and families, Reading Partners serves nine Title I elementary schools across Charleston County. We currently work with over 400 students thanks to over 500 community volunteers who give their time every week to ensure success for these budding young readers. Our goal over the next two years is to reach 1,000 students in Charleston.
Communities in Schools: http://www.cischarleston.org/mentoring.html
Communities In Schools (CIS) mentoring component matches students with “mentors” -exemplary adults from the community who have volunteered to dedicate themselves to at least one year of one-on-one, weekly interaction with a CIS student.
Wings For Kids:http://www.wingsforkids.org/volunteer
WINGS volunteers help out with a number of things including assisting with Academic Center, working one-on-one with a child, or serving dinner at the programs that offer it.
Trident Literacy Association:http://tridentlit.org/index.php/make-a-difference
Provides literacy tutoring for adults. Tutors work one-on-one with students who read at less than a 5th grade reading level. Tutors work with individual and small groups of students who read at less than a 9th grade level. These students work independently. Tutors assist as needed. All low level readers are required to read aloud with a tutor or other helper every day.
Be A Mentor:http://www.beamentornow.org/about-us/
Be A Mentor (BAM) strives to help every child with an unfulfilled promise in the greater Charleston area by matching them with a caring mentor.

The date for Oktoberfest 2014 is set for October 9, 2014. The East Cooper Breakfast Rotary Club will play host to many lowcountry runners with all proceeds going to support Toys for Tots and Happy Feet. In the coming weeks, you will see more information about the event including volunteer and sponsorship opportunities.

A Facebook event page for the Oktoberfest 2014 Run Walk is available to join the event. Like it on Facebook, so your friends will see it and encourage them to join and like the event page. Here’s the link:

ECBR Club Members – We need your help promoting the Kayak/Bike raffle. We only have about 120 tickets left to sell before someone wins the choice of prizes. Please see Mike Patterson for tickets. You can use this flyer to post to social media or to post in your office.